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Solar Eclipse Mania: ‘It’s Officially Happening!’

On Eclipse Day 2017 — also the first day of school — South Elementary School families whooped-it-up as the moon made its move. The swim-suited revelers soaked up the sun and careened down an enormous slip-and-slide hosed down by the Grandville Fire Department. They filled up on planetary party bites, including SunChips, moon pies, sun tea and snow cones.

Like the event at the Grand Rapids Public Museum, this one offered both solar spectacle and educational value.

“They’re using their senses right now,” said Tom Kelly a veteran Grandville elementary science teacher. “They’re making qualitative observations about the moon and sun.

A sixth-grader followed the moon as it skimmed across the sun with her pinhole box fashioned from a cereal box

“This is a wonderful way to get enthusiastic about science. The outdoors is a great learning laboratory; it triggers learning like nothing else.”

Fourth-grader Sophia Viviano and her kindergartner brother, Nathan, stopped splashing long enough to check on the moon’s journey across the sun. “It’s amazing,” said Sophia, wearing eclipse-safe glasses. “I can see a half-moon inside the sun.”

At 2:22 p.m., Principal Ryan Roberts stood stock-still and caught the wonder, before taking a tumble down the slip-and-slide. Roberts said with the eclipse landing on the first half-day day of school, South PTC couldn’t pass up the unique opportunity – considering this was the first total solar eclipse in the continental U.S. since 1979.

“When you think about it, the next total eclipse — from coast to coast — in North America happens in 2099,” Kelly said. “It’s reasonable to believe that our kindergarteners would live to see that next total eclipse. Me — not so much!”

Grandville South Elementary School celebrated Eclipse Day 2017, the first day of school, with an astronomical slip-and-slide headlining the celestial celebrationA Grandville parent and her sons are transfixed by the historic phenomenonA West Elementary School kindergartner smacked her blue lips courtesy of an azure-hued snow coneSome 400 eclipse-safe glasses were provided Grandville students so they could track the moon’s journey across the sun